BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He is also the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith, which aired on PBS.

Bishop Barron is a #1 Amazon bestselling author and has published numerous books, essays, and articles on theology and the spiritual life. He is a religion correspondent for NBC and has also appeared on FOX News, CNN, and EWTN.

Bishop Barron’s website, WordOnFire.org, reaches millions of people each year, and he is one of the world’s most followed Catholics on social media. His regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 50 million times and he has over 2.3 million followers on Facebook.

Bishop Barron has been invited to speak about religion at the headquarters of Facebook, Google, and Amazon. He has keynoted many conferences and events all over the world, including the World Youth Day in Kraków and the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, which marked Pope Francis’ historic visit to the United States.

His most recent project is the Word on Fire Institute, a new hub for spiritual and intellectual formation, training members of the Word on Fire movement to proclaim Christ in the culture.

LONG BIOGRAPHY

Bishop Robert Barron is an acclaimed author, speaker, and theologian. He is also the founder of the global media ministry Word on Fire, which reaches millions of people by utilizing the tools of new media to draw people into or back to the Catholic Faith. Francis Cardinal George has described him as “one of the Church’s best messengers.”

Bishop Barron is the creator and host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary series about the Catholic Faith. The series has aired on hundreds of PBS stations across the world and has been used by parishes, universities, and schools as an essential resource. Since then, Bishop Barron and Word on Fire also released the follow-up documentary CATHOLICISM: The New Evangelization and are currently wrapping up CATHOLICISM: The Pivotal Players, a beautiful new film series on the mystics, scholars, artists, and saints who shaped the Church and changed the world. The first volume of the series debuted in September 2016 and was syndicated for national television and nominated for an Emmy award. The second volume is currently in production.

Bishop Barron has created eight other films and study programs including:

Bishop Barron’s website, WordOnFire.org, reaches millions of people each year. The site hosts daily blog posts, weekly articles and video commentaries, and an extensive audio archive of over 500 homilies. Bishop Barron’s homilies are heard by tens of thousands of listeners each week. His regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 50 million times, and over 400,000 people receive his daily email reflections. Episodes of his podcast/radio show, The Word on Fire Show, have been downloaded over 10 million times.

Bishop Barron is one of the most-followed Catholics in the world on social media. His work has garnered:

Bishop Barron has produced over 400 online video commentaries. His weekly, high-quality productions include brief and lively theological reviews of contemporary culture, including movies, books, music, current events, and more.

EWTN (The Eternal Word Television Network) and CatholicTV broadcast Bishop Barron’s videos and documentaries to a worldwide audience of over 150 million people. His weekly homilies and podcasts air on multiple radio stations to millions of listeners.

Bishop Barron has been invited to speak about religion at the headquarters of Facebook, Google, and Amazon. He has keynoted many conferences and events all over the world, including the 2016 World Youth Day in Kraków and the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, which marked Pope Francis’ historic visit to the United States.

Bishop Barron works with NBC News in New York as an on-air contributor and analyst. He is also a frequent commentator for the Chicago Tribune, FOX News, CNN, EWTN, Our Sunday Visitor, the Catholic Herald in London, and Catholic News Agency.

He has published numerous essays and articles on theology and the spiritual life, which appear frequently online and in numerous journals. He is a #1 Amazon bestselling author and has published sixteen books, including:

His most recent project is the Word on Fire Institute, a new hub for spiritual and intellectual formation, training members of the Word on Fire movement to proclaim Christ in the culture.

Bishop Barron received a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America in 1982 and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1992. His other advanced degrees include:

Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, Assumption College

Doctor of Divinity, Honoris Causa, Saint Anselm College

Doctor of Sacred Theology, Honoris Causa, Dominican House of Studies

Doctor of Religious Education, Honoris Causa, Providence College

Doctor of Humanities, Honoris Causa, Lewis University

Bishop Barron was ordained a priest in 1986 in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and then appointed to the theological faculty of Mundelein Seminary in 1992. He has also served as a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He was twice scholar in residence at the Pontifical North American College at the Vatican.

He served as the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary University of St. Mary of the Lake from 2012 until 2015.

On July 21, 2015, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Barron to be Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He was ordained bishop on September 8, 2015.

@TheAnchoress @BishopBarron @WordOnFire These relentlessly exciting unboxing rituals on social media - are catalysts for the unexpected and profound worldwide 🌎 Biblical enthusiasm ... so desperately needed ... let us pray for the Gospels to be healing balm for so much woundedness 🙏 in so many hearts 💕. +JMJ